


Time Will Tell

by Nendil



Series: 1sentence prompts [2]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: 50 Sentences, F/M, Fluff, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-02
Updated: 2010-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25791079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nendil/pseuds/Nendil
Summary: Whoops, I couldn't resist and did another 50-sentence set... This one's strictly a sketch of Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask and beyond, in chronological order.
Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Series: 1sentence prompts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1870945
Kudos: 3





	Time Will Tell

**Author's Note:**

> _Sheik is entirely Zelda in disguise here. I feel like I shouldn't have to disclaim that!_

A. Spring - when lives and hearts and hopes are green _(once upon a dream)_

 **#15 - Touch  
**She feels the brush of destiny before she even turns around, a flicker of should-recognition across the sun-filled courtyard: _Is it you?_

 **#11 - Name  
**"Strange," a tilt of her head like a curious bird, "it sounds somehow... familiar..."

 **#40 - Innocence  
**"I'm sure the two of us can defeat him, don't you think?"

 **#25 - Devotion  
**"Messenger of the Royal Family," the Great Fairy had called him, and he might have corrected her if he hadn't been beaming a little on the inside at the thought.

 **#01 - Comfort  
**Ganondorf's looming presence at court still racks her with chills, but she gathers up courage from her newfound dream-champion and meets his venom glare with defiance - _We are going to stop you._

 **#05 - Potatoes *  
**"You play that song too much, you clod," Navi huffs and disappears into the tree branches overhead, leaving him puzzled to what she has to be so miffed about.

 **#10 - Ears  
**Gerudos tend to forget the sharpness of Hylian hearing, so no one notices a loitering princess picking up snippets of muffled scheming, ominous instructions, triumphant laughter - _Oh Link, please hurry._

 **#34 - Lightning/Thunder  
**He's seen all this before - black clouds choking the sky, white horse erupting through the drawbridge gate, pleading blue eyes catching his for an eternal split-second - but if this is the scene from his dreams, then that means—

 **#45 - Hell  
**"Please Impa, we have to go back, I gave him the Ocarina and he'll be killed if we don't help him Impa _please—_ "

 **#24 - Taste  
**At the most inappropriate time - Spiritual Stones spread over the altar, two notes of sacred song already echoing off the stone wall - came the most irreverent realization: _This ocarina's been in her **mouth**._

 **#33 - Fear  
**She is safe at the moment, but "safe" means little when she has left behind everything precious to the mercy of the enemy, when all her shoddy hopes lie in one desperate message he might never hear, when a sudden presence fills her mind and her hand glows with light _what is happening?_

 **#13 - Death  
**The mocking voice shakes his fading awareness while he's helpless to move even a muscle in defiance, and his last thought before whiteness drowns his senses is _I've failed her—_

~

B. Summer - when embers embolden and emblaze _(fire-forged)_

 **#21 - Life  
**The blue glow flickers and fades, casting into the broken world a newborn hero, a bewildered youth, the hopes of all the land - she takes a deep breath and steps into the light.

 **#28 - Sickness  
**He has many things to learn about this new body, some obstacles to overcome and some advantages to master, but there is one aspect he doesn't quite understand and can't quite ignore, especially when it conjures visions of _her_ —

 **#27 - Blood  
**The first time she spies rust-red stains through the green tunic, she nearly abandons the whole charade just to fly to his aid - but this, too, was the toll demanded of a Hero, so she pays another price for him instead and slips the potion into his saddlepack under the embrace of night.

 **#12 - Sensual  
**One night, it is not cornsilk hair and clear-sky eyes that visit his dream but the voice of a slippery shadow, hushed and thick beneath a veil of bunched linen that slides slowly, tentatively down, dry and coarse like desert sand between his fingers... he wakes more confused than ever.

 **#22 - Jealousy  
**The Sheikah warrior remains perfectly and enigmatically stoic as he escorts the Zora princess to safety, but inside she howls in what she is not sure is laughter or outrage, _Fiancée??_

 **#06 - Rain  
**A drip of water on the bridge of his nose startles him back into consciousness, and he is surprised to see Sheik has not (for once) abandoned him in the opportune moment.

 **#19 - Wind  
**At the Spirit Temple he grows bold, too bold, and she smiles behind her mask with both regret and relief that it would be their last such meeting as her magic whips up blinding sand between them.

 **#32 - Confusion  
**Somehow his shadow guide and his bright princess are one and the same, and it's only the first of many things he barely understands as her nervous words flutter past his ears, but Lost Woods be damned, at least he knows there is _one_ thing that finally makes sense.

 **#16 - Weakness  
**Her guard crumbles as he reaches for her, at last, _at last_ —a booming voice crashes between them with dark roaring laughter, and her world disappears behind merciless crystal.

 **#18 - Speed  
**"You have to rest first," cries Navi uselessly, but a force far more agonizing than weariness compels him up the endless crimson-carpet steps, and that heavy door looms ever closer ahead—

 **#50 - Supernova  
**Sacred blade and blazing magic strike together as one, and it is everything—it is enough—it is over.

 **#43 - Sky  
**He's not sure where they are or why, but the only thing that matters in this strange, empty realm is his Princess standing beautiful and fragile before him, closer than ever yet more unreachable than ever.

 **#08 - Happiness  
**_Because it's what he deserves,_ the mantra fills the hollow void of her heart, and it's enough to keep her spell steady and her tears at bay until the light has faded completely away.

.

C. Fall - when the clock strikes twelve _(will you be gone?)_

 **#31 - Home  
**The forest is still there, and the village is still there, just as he left them, but his world is now so much bigger and his heart dwells somewhere beyond a child's treehouse walls.

 **#39 - Smile  
**"I have to find Navi," he mumbles into his lap, and she offers him only blithe encouragement and an ocarina, tucking away wistful words and wishes for herself alone.

 **#20 - Freedom  
**No more Hyrule, no more Navi, no more thoughts of _her_ \- he tries to tell himself it's for the better, but he has never been a very good liar.

 **#42 - Clouds  
**The moon is lost tonight, and though it's commonplace weather for this time of year, she can't help but search the sky again and again, her heart inexplicably tight at her throat.

 **#38 - Gift  
**They are out of time and out of hope, for he has no weapons, no powers, no _body_ even to throw against the immense weight of the falling sky, but then his marionette fingers fall across rounded porcelain, and a memory blossoms—

 **#17 - Tears  
**The Princess no longer ruins her dresses climbing trees and fighting mock-battles - her handmaidens breathe a sigh of relief - but to her, it is every bit a mourning.

 **#47 - Moon  
**Perhaps Termina is really the other face of Hyrule, for everywhere he turns, a stranger wears a face he once knew - but there is one face he never finds, no matter where he travels.

 **#09 - Telephone  
**She whispers a secret into the Gossip Stone, casts a prayer upon the web of rumors that the words spread far enough to reach wherever he may roam.

 **#26 - Forever  
**Hasty though his goodbye had been, he never meant for it to be permanent - and as another same-new day dawns for the again-first time, he plays to himself a tune that echoes meaninglessly in this foreign never-land, and tries to ignore the first twinge of despair.

 **#29 - Melody  
**The sound of her lullaby tugs her out of a dream, lonely and cold against the barely-rising sun - it had yearned, and called, and she had no way to respond.

 **#03 - Soft  
**"Why," sighs Tatl, "are we spending this much time trying to help some guy who ran away from his girlfriend just 'cause he got turned into a kid?"

 **#48 - Waves  
**Wishing on fairy fountains was a childish fancy she had long outgrown, but now she drops a handful of Rupees into the glowing pool and bares her heart once more upon the widening ripples - _Guide well his path, bring him home safe._

 **#30 - Star  
**The constellations were unrecognizable in Termina, and he had developed a habit of not looking up very often - but one ( _new_ ) night on the open, aimless road, he glimpses the Great Triangle bright in the sky for the first time in (three days? weeks? years?) a long time, and hope flares - at last.

*

D. Winter - when we find warmth in one another _(don't let go)_

 **#35 - Bonds  
**Her Triforce senses the return of its mate before she does, but even then she dares not believe it until he stands at the entrance to her courtyard, taller and tousled but still bright and bold, and every bit as ready to receive her falling into his arms.

 **#02 - Kiss  
**"I missed you," she breathes, and tells him a flurry of things that set his heart soaring, but he has no such skill for words—only blind daring—and so tells her the same in a wordless, reckless way.

 **#04 - Pain  
**Time and fate and duty can all whisk away a Hero again in an instant, she is wise enough to know this - but for this furtive moment, she coaxes a promise from his lips and it's enough to believe in.

 **#37 - Technology  
**She is endlessly fascinated with the pictograph box, but he snaps only one more picture for his own keeping.

 **#49 - Hair  
**She's just the tiniest bit disappointed to find that it does not, in fact, fill up the entire length of his hat.

 **#44 - Heaven  
**"Well, I've _been_ to the Sacred Realm," he says, not to her nestled beside him but up at the blue-not-white-gold sky, "and I think it's nicer here."

 **#23 - Hands  
**Beneath a cocoon of night, unpunctuated by firelight or poelight or stray roaming stars, only the soft glows of matching Triforce marks betray the exploratory trails over faces, and laces, and skin.

 **#46 - Sun  
**She has no good explanation to Impa for how a princess got sunburned _there_.

 **#07 - Chocolate  
**Darunia sends a "delicacy" for the banquet that largely resembles a hewed mass of lava rock - he is the only one brave enough to try it; she is the only one shrewd enough to talk him into it.

 **#14 - Sex  
**"Nabooru says the Gerudo have a claim on you," she looks up from the letter, one eyebrow laughingly quirked at his indignant sputtering, "...or at least, a part of you."

 **#36 - Market  
**He can't afford it just yet - the ring, yes; the combined setting of sapphire and emerald, no - but he sets his jaw and scrutinizes the back alleys for the last few golden Skulltulas - someday soon, he will.

 **#41 - Completion  
**There's no telling how history will remember the bearers of the Triforce - as ageless legends, or as nameless players; but she is content, here and now - gazing out across her kingdom, his hand warm over hers - to leave the weaving of tales to time's whimsy.

**Author's Note:**

> * **#05:** Bit of a stretch - the style of ocarina used in the Zelda games is called a _sweet potato_. I'm just too much a sucker for wordplay to not run with it...


End file.
